DEC RP02/RP03 issues

[Philipp Hachtmann]

Hi everybody,

thanks for your replies!

>> This isn't the answer you want to hear, but if these had been hooked up to
>> an RP10, wouldn't it make more sense to arrange for these drives to be used
>> on a PDP-10 rather than a PDP-11?
Yes, it would. But I did NOT have the space to take the pdp10. I helped to load most of it into two 
trucks last saturday....

>  Unless I'm mistaken the PDP-11 varient
>> are slightly more common.  And yes, I'm saying this even though I *assume*
>> you do not have a PDP-10.
No. And I cannot have one. Too big. But my computer collectors' society now has three drives.
I could give them to the people who took the pdp10 - but I doubt that they will accept them.. They 
got several other drives as well.


> Since, so far as I know, there is only one person on the planet with RP10
> controllers on PDP-10 systems, and those are currently warehoused with no
> plans to do anything with them until he retires (in roughly 15 years), the
> need to hook these drives to a PDP-10 is vanishingly small.
So now you know of another one. There is at least one of those controllers here in Germany. Probably 
two. Because we found two complete sets of cables.

> They're also large.  They take 1/2 of an H960 rack and have *lots* of flip chips.
Yes, they are. But probably still around somewhere. I think that it's easier to get such a 
controller than get the drives... With the controller, we could set up the original Unix 
configuration, I've been told.
Which disk drives should I take else? Just scrap the RP02/02 machines? They look so nice! And 
they're impressive! Would be a pity.....

> Very difficult. RP11C controllers are pretty uncommon.
:-(
But there IS some hope....!
If they're more uncommon than RS64 fixed head disks, there is even more hope :)


> The drives are standard IBM BUS/TAG interface, and are compatible with
> 2311-ish drives. 20 and 40mb.
As you said in your next posting... They're not. Ok. I don't know either of the interfaces.
The drives have a big interconnected bus and an individual unit cable. I have all the cables (unit, 
bus, power).
I "only" need the controller.


> I have the manuals for the drives, they were made by Memorex. I'll see about
> getting them on line. The RP11 docs are already there under unibus. One of the
> people involved with the Mass Storage SIG at CHM designed the RP02 (Tom Garner)
> at Memorex. 
Hm, docs for the drives would be a good starting point.
And if everything fails, I will think of building a controller by means of modern microelectronics 
(i.e. programmable logic). Would be not so nice, but better than scrapping the drives...!

Who is corestore? He has a picture of an RP11 controller on his website. Perhaps he doesn't need it 
anymore?

Best wishes,

Philipp



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